


Masks

by Ara (WalkUnseen)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Back at it again with some probably incorrect thoughts the characters might have about things, Drabble, Spoilers in general, The rest of the M9 mentioned, but i have a lot of things on my mind about fjord, ep 40 spoilers, so here you go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 17:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkUnseen/pseuds/Ara
Summary: Fjord has always been good at pretending.





	Masks

**Author's Note:**

> I had the urge to try and write from Fjords pov after everything that happened. This stuff is probably all incorrect but ya know. fiction.

He has always been good at pretending. 

It was a skill he learned quickly, _easily_ , on the backs of those laughing, sneering children that jibed and jeered at him. 

He chipped at his tusks, changed his voice, slipped on a mask, and pretended for them. 

And pretending became easier than being himself. 

Pretending meant he didn't have to think about how he didn't belong somewhere. About how he didn't fit in among these people, or in whatever place he ended up. 

And it was easy to pretend on the ships. 

Laugh and drink and pretend like he was something he wasn't among the other crewmates. Talk about things he never cared about, joke with them about things he didn't know, but it was far too easy to slip on that mask and smile and just try and belong somewhere for a moment. 

And there were a few people he didn't have to pretend around. 

Those people were rare. 

They lasted for brief amounts of time and often betrayed him.

It always made him think that maybe pretending was easier than telling the truth. 

Vandrin was one of those, but he did not betray him.

And he thought maybe he could trust him, could find somewhere to belong on this endless sea of uncertainties where he had never found somewhere to call home before.

But that was ripped from him by a man who he thought he didn't have to pretend around. 

Sabien shattered that careful illusion that he had told himself on that ship. 

That he might actually be worth something, that he might finally belong somewhere and not have to pretend to be something he isn't. 

He slipped back into pretending when he woke up on that shore because it was easy. 

Jester thought it was amusing when he met her. 

She thought it was fun and games when he slipped on that mask and shifted his voice to get what he wanted from the people they encountered.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that he didn't know how to take the mask off anymore. 

He let her think that the Fjord she met was the real one.

And maybe it was. 

Because honestly, sometimes he didn't remember who the real Fjord was anyways. 

The group he found himself in later kept appointing him as their leader and he didn't understand it. 

Because he was not a strong man, he was not a courageous one, he was a series of masks pulled over a person, trading them out for which one fit the best. 

He didn't belong with them, he was not one of them, but he could pretend to be. 

And they chipped at his masks. 

They searched for that lost Fjord beneath the surface and he didn't understand their careful probing of his past. 

He told them the bare minimum, enough to get by, to avoid suspicion. Enough to create an unease in them if they continued to search for a history in him. 

Because there were things he didn't want to tell them, that he knows they wouldn't want to hear, and so he pretended to give them what they wanted and kept those other things for himself and under the masks. 

Molly dies and he doesn't know what to think besides the fact that he failed them. That his careful facade as their leader wasn't a good enough mask to keep them all safe and alive. 

He improves it.

He steels it and braces it and he pours his all into that Fjord that would die for them, that would do anything for them because he is responsible for them.

He is their leader and later he is their captain. 

And as their captain his mask is unfaltering and unfailing. 

Even as he plays a dangerous game with a woman who will most likely try to kill him. Even as she peers past his facade and sees a scared, orphaned child. Even as she bends him to her will because she can see past his careful collection of masks where the others can't. 

He does everything for them because they are his crew and he can pretend for them if it means they will survive. 

He smiles later, he reassures them, he tells them that he doesn't want the power Uka' toa can offer him, but he's unsure of what part of him says that.

He thinks it's the part that wants them to believe he is an unfailingly good person, that part of him that wants them to think the prospect of power isn't alluring at all. 

But it is. 

He's pretended to be someone else his whole life. 

But with that power maybe he doesn't have to. 

Maybe that Fjord, that small half-orc boy that chipped desperately at his tusks so he could pretend he was something he wasn't, could finally be something he was meant to be. 

Maybe he could carve out a space for himself where he didn't have to wear these masks, where he didn't have to pretend, where people like Avantika couldn't take advantage of his desire to stick to a role. 

He keeps that Fjord, that one that can't help but have a small spark of hunger in his eyes at the thought of power, hidden beneath all of the other masks. 

He'll keep pretending until he has to make a decision. 

And he's not sure what it will be yet.

**Author's Note:**

> now that that's finished its back to my real life work and other stories. woo.


End file.
